World champions Italy stumble but France win

LONDON, Sep 3 (Reuters) World champions Italy stumbled out of the blocks at the start of the race to the Euro 2008 finals when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Lithuania in their opening qualifying match in Naples yesterday.

There was also a big upset in Bydgoszcz where Poland, under new Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker, crashed to a shock 3-1 home defeat by Finland, who have never reached the finals of a major tournament.

Elsewhere, the first big night of qualifying action ended in victory for all the favourites to reach the finals in Austria and Switzerland in two years' time.

World Cup runners-up France won their first competitive match of the post-Zinedine Zidane era in impressive fashion by crushing Georgia 3-0 in Tbilisi.

There were also opening wins for England, who beat Andorra 5-0 at Old Trafford, Germany, who overcame a spirited Ireland 1-0 in Stuttgart, the Netherlands who squeezed a 1-0 win over Luxembourg, and Spain, who beat Liechtenstein 4-0.

Germany, playing in a qualifying match for the first time in nearly three years after going through automatically to the World Cup finals as hosts, beat Ireland with a 57th-minute shot from Lukas Podolski which took a wicked deflection off Ireland skipper Robbie Keane.

Ireland's manager Steve Staunton was banished to the stands for kicking a water bottle in protest.

The Dutch had an unexpectedly tough battle in Luxembourg securing all three points with a 17th-minute goal from Joris Mathijsen.

There were also big wins for Scotland, who beat the Faroe Islands 6-0 in Glasgow, Slovakia, who beat Cyprus 6-1 and Norway, who stunned once-mighty Hungary 4-1 in Budapest.

European champions Greece, who have been far from impressive since winning Euro 2004 in Portugal, opened their campaign with a narrow 1-0 win in Moldova thanks to a late goal from substitute Nikos Liberopoulos.

Earlier Angelos Basinas blasted a penalty kick over the bar.

FIRST GEAR Italy were expected to enjoy a party atmosphere in Naples against Lithuania, who had never scored a goal against the Italians in four previous meetings.

New Italian coach Roberto Donadoni fielded a B squad in a friendly against Croatia last month which Italy lost 2-0, but had many of the World Cup players back for his first competitive fixture in charge.

The World Cup trophy was paraded atop a blue sportscar before the match, but it was Lithuania who hit top gear first with Tomas Danilevicius scoring the opener after 21 minutes.

Italy were level eight minutes later through Filippo Inzaghi, but could not add to their tally in the second half and had to settle for a point.

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